The  Reflex  Influence  of 

FOREIGN  MISSIONS 


EGBERT  W.  SMITH 


Copies  of  this  leaflet  may  be  obtained  from 

EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  FOREIGN  MISSIONS 
PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH.  IN  THE  U.  S. 

154  Fifth  Ave.,  North,  Nashville,  Tenn. 


The  Reflex  Influence  of  Foreign  Missions 

EGBERT  W.  SMITH 


When  Jonah  found  that  God  was  about  to  have  mercy  on  people  who  were 
not  Jews,  he  fell  into  a  rage.  When  Paul  at  Jerusalem  said  he  was  going  to  the 
Gentiles,  the  Jews  cast  dust  in  the  air,  and  cried,  “Away  with  such  a  fellow  from 
the  earth.”  Because  they  refused  to  be  the  light  of  the  world,  God  took  the 
Jewish  candle  out  of  the  candlestick,  and  the  nation  went  into  darkness. 

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For  the  same  reason  the  Christian  Church  went  into  the  Dark  Ages.  It 
turned  its  candle  into  a  dark  lantern,  and  said,  “So  long  as  I  see  the  light,  I  care 
not  who  is  in  the  dark.”  North  Africa  and  Syria  and  other  lands,  to  which 
missionaries  are  now  sent,  thirteen  centuries  ago  were  starred  with  Christian 
churches.  But  they  became  self-absorbed.  They  forgot  their  missionary  char¬ 
acter.  And  God  removed  their  candlestick  out  of  its  place. 

Sustains  and  Quickens  the  Spiritual  Vitality  of  the  Home  Church. 

What  other  result  could  we  expect?  “Go  ye  and  make  disciples  of  all  na¬ 
tions,  and  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway.”  If  we  want  Christ’s  presence,  we  must 
obey  Christ’s  command.  The  one  is  conditioned  upon  the  other.  To  whom 
does  God  give  His  Holy  Spirit?  Let  Scripture  answer:  “The  Holy  Spirit  which 
God  hath  given  to  them  that  obey  Him.” 

The  Edinburgh  Conference  voiced  a  great  truth  when  it  declared  that  until 
the  Church  realizes  its  missionary  obligation  to  evangelize  the  world,  and  until 
it  enters  upon  the  fulfilment  of  the  same  with  all  its  corporate  strength,  it  will 
never  attain  full  power  upon  earth  as  the  living  body  of  its  Lord. 

The  non-missionary  church  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  itself,  sooner  or 
later,  a  cold  and  dead  church.  In  1812  a  man  in  the  Senate  of  Massachusetts 
objected  to  the  incorporation  of  the  American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  on  the 
ground  that  “the  country  had  no  religion  to  spare.”  It  has  been  well  said  that 
if  that  objection  had  prevailed,  by  this  time  the  country  would  have  had  no 
religion  to  keep. 

Church  history  abundantly  proves  that  missionary  obedience  and  spiritual 
vigor  and  revival  go  hand  in  hand.  The  great  English  preacher,  Andrew  Fuller, 


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becoming  alarmed  at  the  spiritual  lethargy  about  him,  preached  a  sermon  on 
the  duty  of  the  Church  to  give  the  Gospel  to  the  world.  He  followed  it  up  the 
next  Sabbath  with  a  sermon  on  the  same  subject.  The  third  Sabbath  the  same 
theme  v/as  presented.  The  people  then  began  to  ask,  “If  this  Gospel  can  save 
the  world,  can  it  not  save  our  own  children,  our  own  community And  from 
those  missionary  sermons  there  sprang  one  of  the  most  memorable  revivals  in 
the  history  of  any  church. 

A  Comparisorir 

The  eighteenth  century  was  non-missionary.  The  nineteenth  was  mission¬ 
ary.  How  do  they  compare  in  spiritual  fruitfulness?  Did  the  exportation  of 
religion  diminish  the  stock  at  home?  Let  the  figures  answer.  In  the  eighteenth 
century,  Christianity  gained  nearly  as  many  new  adherents  as  during  the  first 
thousand  years.  In  the  nineteenth  century,  in  home  lands  alone,  it  gained  nearly 
three  times  as  many  new  adherents  as  during  the  first  fifteen  hundred  years. 

The  spiritual  muscle  trained  to  throw  the  Gospel  half  round  the  world,  sends 
it  with  all  the  greater  force  into  the  hearts  and  lives  of  those  not  so  distant.  If 
we  build  up  the  fire  till  it  is  big  enough  to  warm  and  illumine  men  on  the  other 
side  of  the  globe,  the  added  heat  and  light  will  be  felt  first  of  all  and  most  of  all 
by  those  nearest  the  fire. 

Stimulates  the  Faith  and  Prayer-Life  of  the  Home  Church. 

To  overthrow  civilizations  and  religions  that  were  hoary  with  age  before 
Christianity  was  born,  that  are  held  by  hundreds  of  millions  of  men  whose 
habits  of  thought  and  systems  of  belief  and  social  and  moral  structure  of  life 
have  been  hardening  through  thousands  of  years  into  granite  strength — to  do 
this,  using  none  of  the  ordinary  means,  neither  military  nor  civil  power,  neither 
social  nor  official  influence,  neither  financial  nor  material  inducement  of  any 
kind — surely  an  undertaking  so  patently  impossible  from  every  worldly  point 
of  view  might  justify  the  declaration  of  the  British  East  India  Company,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  “This  sending  of  Christian  mission¬ 
aries  into  our  eastern  possessions  is  the  maddest  project  ever  proposed  by  a 
lunatic  enthusiast.” 

Yet  to  this  undertaking  the  Church  has  committed  itself.  Why?  The  one 
answer  is  Christ.  The  authority  for  Foreign  Missions  is  Christ.  The  exemplar 


of  Foreign  Missions  is  Christ.  The  purpose  of  Foreign  Missions  is  Christ.  The 
power  in  Foreign  Missions  is  Christ.  The  Foreign  Mission  enterprise  is  the 
Church’s  supreme  exhibition  of  her  obedience  to  Christ’s  authority,  her  sympa¬ 
thy  with  Christ’s  spirit,  her  loyalty  to  Christ’s  purpose,  her  faith  in  Christ’s 
power  and  promise.  It  tests  and  stimulates  in  her  this  spirit  of  confidence  in 
and  consecration  to  her  Lord,  it  throws  her  completely  back  on  her  Superhuman 
Resources  and  develops  her  prayer-life,  as  nothing  else  does  or  can. 

Furnishes  the  Home  Church  with  Fresh  Proofs  of  a  Living  Christ. 

The  actual  fruits  of  Foreign  Mission  work  are  such  as  to  fill  the  Church  with 
a  fresh  and  rejoicing  consciousness  of  the  presence  and  power  of  her  divine  Lord. 

Though  the  work  thus  far  has  mainly  been,  of  necessity,  foundation  work, 
sowing  rather  than  reaping,  yet  already  in  non-Christian  lands  there  is  a  native 
church  of  two  and  a  half  million  members,  with  adherents  numbering  seven 
millions  more,  a  membership  larger  than  all  the  Presbyterian  churches  in  the 
United  States  put  together. 

The  percentage  of  annual  increase  on  the  foreign  field  is  many  times  that 
of  the  evangelical  churches  in  this  country;  on  the  Southern  Presbyterian 
mission  fields  it  is  about  eight  times  that  of  the  supporting  home  church;  and 
this  superiority  of  growth  is  increasing  at  a  swiftly  accelerating  rate. 

“Thy  Touch  Hath  Still  Its  Ancient  Power.” 

The  power  of  Christ  to  bind  human  hearts  to  Himself  in  deathless  love,  has 
not  waned  with  the  flying  centuries.  Col.  Charles  Denby,  American  Minister 
to  China,  estimated  that  in  the  Boxer  uprising  15,000  Protestant  Chinese  Chris¬ 
tians  were  butchered  and  that  only  two  per  cent  of  them  abandoned  their  faith. 

The  dread  of  death,  the  passion  for  revenge,  the  strongest  fears  and  crav¬ 
ings  of  our  human  nature,  in  our  mission  fields  today,  as  in  the  early  centuries, 
are  changed  by  Christ  into  forgiving  love  and  exulting  joy. 

A  recent  graduate  of  a  Theological  Seminary  in  China  requested  that  he 
be  sent  to  labor  in  a  particular  field.  He  said  : 

“My  father  and  mother  were  working  in  that  district  when  the  Boxer  uprising 
came.  They  called  my  father  out  into  the  road  and  asked  him  to  deny  Christ  or  be  killed. 
He  professed  his  faith  in  Christ,  and  they  hacked  his  body  to  pieces  in  the  street.  They 


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called  my  mother  out,  showed  her  what  they  had  done  to  my  father,  and  threatened  her  with 
similar  treatment  unless  she  denied  Christ.  She  said,  ‘You  may  cut  my  tongue  out  if  you  will; 
I  will  never  use  it  to  deny  my  Lord!’  They  cut  her  tongue  out  and  hacked  her  body  to  pieces. 
My  two  little  sisters  were  then  brought  out,  subjected  to  the  same  test,  and  killed  in  the  same 
way.  I  want  to  go  back  to  that  district  where  my  father  and  mother  and  two  sisters  testified 
to  their  faith  with  their  blood,  that  1  may  tell  those  people  that  there  is  no  hatred  in  my  heart 
toward  them,  but  that  I  long  to  have  them  share  with  me  the  unspeakable  blessing  of  knowing 
Christ.” 

The  Enchanter’s  Wand. 


Among  the  most  debased  and  degraded  peoples  of  the  earth,  the  Gospel  is 
working  such  miracles  of  transformation  that  Charles  Darwin,  the  great  scien¬ 
tist,  seeing  them  with  his  own  eyes,  was  compelled  to  declare:  “The  lesson  of 
the  missionary  is  the  wand  of  the  enchanter.”  And  in  that  very  land  where  Chris¬ 
tian  missions  were  pronounced  in  advance  to  be  the  dream  of  a  lunatic,  the 
English  Lieutenant  Governor  of  Bengal  has  recently  stated,  “In  my  judgment, 
Christian  missionaries  have  done  more  lasting  good  to  the  people  of  India  than 
all  other  agencies  combined.” 

Teaches  the  Home  Church  Lessons  in  New  Testament  Christianity. 

While  the  native  Christians  retain  many  marks  of  their  former  bondage  to 
evil,  yet  they  bear  also  such  marks  of  the  Divine  Spirit  as  to  make  them  in  many 
things  an  inspiration  and  rebuke  to  us. 

In  a  single  city  in  Korea,  ten  thousand  were  added  to  the  Church  in  three 
weeks.  Why?  Because  with  apostolic  zeal  three  hundred  and  fifty  teams  of 
two  members  each  were  out  doing  personal  work  in  that  city  and  adjoining 
country,  and  one  single  native  church  was  working  through  its  membership 
in  one  hundred  and  fifty  villages. 

Not  only  in  personal  witness  bearing  for  Christ,  but  in  Bible  study,  in  ob¬ 
servance  of  family  worship,  in  self-denying  liberality,  the  Korean  Church  has  a 
lesson  for  the  American. 

A  Bishop  Ashamed  of  Himself. 

A  Methodist  Missionary  Bishop,  visiting  in  1912  the  Southern  Presbyterian 
Mission  at  Luebo  in  the  Belgian  Congo,  writes: 

‘*A  marvellous  work  is  this;  the  great  congregation  here  of  from  1,000  to  1,200; 
an  attendance  of  800  at  Sunday-school  last  .Sunday  during  a  heavy  rain;  I  heard  500 
children  repeat  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Lord’s  Prayer  and 


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at  least  twenty  hymns;  and  this  morning  at  six  o’clock  a  prayer-meeting,  in  the  midst  of  a  dense 
and  penetrating  fog.  I  am  fond  of  a  morning  nap,  but  I  can  not  lie  in  bed  when  that  bell  rings, 
and  realize  that  several  hundred  half-clad  people  shivering  with  cold  will  come  of  their  own  free 
will  to  engage  in  an  earnest  morning  prayer  for  their  families  and  their  unconverted  neighbors. 
No  wonder  the  fire  burns  in  their  hearts.  Such  devotion  will  kindle  a  flame  anywhere. 

“Then  add  the  fact  that  forty- four  native  teachers  went  out  this  morning  to  forty-odd  vil¬ 
lages  or  hamlets  and  taught  the  Scriptures  until  nine,  came  back  walking  from  two  to  four  miles, 
and  took  part  in  the  teaching  of  boys  and  girls  under  the  great  shed,  and  all  this  without  a  bite 
to  eat.  I  tell  you  it  makes  me  ashamed  of  my  religious  life.  It  makes  me  feel  like  mending  my 
ways.” 

Of  the  spirit  of  the  native  Christians,  who  a  few  years  ago  were  savages 
and  often  cannibals,  this  eye-witness  writes  further: 

“My  soul  rejoiced  within  me  at  this  great  piece  of  evangelism,  wrought  out  by  the 
Southern  Presbyterian  missionaries  in  twenty-one  years. 

“A  mere  handful  of  white  and  colored  missionaries  have  gathered  about  them  8,000  earnest 
Christians,  and  out  of  this  number  300  teachers  and  evemgelists,  who,  while  they  themselves  are 
under  training,  have  daily  under  instruction  thousands  of  children  and  grown  people.  Do  you 
wonder  that  my  soul  stirred  when  I  think  of  this  being  carried  on  for  a  nine  days’  journey  on  foot 
in  almost  every  direction  from  Luebo  as  the  base  or  center,  and  by  LAYMEN?  Not  one  or¬ 
dained  preacher  as  yet,  and  200  of  the  force  of  300  self-supporting. 

A  Challenge  to  the  Laymen. 

“What  a  challenge  to  the  laymen  of  our  Church!  We  have  never  fully  utilized  this  great 
contingent  at  home.  Here  is  an  illustration  from  the  foreign  field  of  what  can  be  done.  These 
men  are  not  preachers.  They  do  not  pretend  to  be.  They  are  Christian  school  teachers;  they 
are  expounders  of  the  Word  of  God  as  they  themselves  have  been  taught;  they  organize  cottage 
prayer  meetings  and  establish  and  superintend  Sunday-schools.  They  know  God.  I  rarely  have 
heard  such  prayers.  They  have  learned  how  to  talk  with  God,  and  with  a  devoutness  of  spirit 
which  is  marvelous.  They  are  leading  the  people  in  the  way  of  truth  and  right  living. 

“The  work  of  these  men  and  that  of  their  missionary  leaders  is  rooted  and  grounded  in  faith 
and  in  prayer.  Think  of  three  hundred  turning  out  every  morning  of  the  year  to  6  o’clock  prayer 
meeting.  Think  of  a  semi-circle  of  cottage  prayer  meetings  at  Luebo  every  Wednesday  night 
extending  for  two  miles.  I  heard  the  singing  from  half  a  hundred  different  points  while  I  was 
walking  through  the  mission  compound  or  campus,  on  my  way  to  conduct  the  missionary  prayer 
service  in  English.  Is  there  any  wonder  that  we  felt  that  night  the  presence  of  our  Lord?  I 
thank  God  for  what  I  have  seen  and  heard.  The  half  had  not  been  told  me.” 

The  Book  and  the  Life. 

Bishop  Taylor  used  to  tell  of  a  wealthy  Parsee  in  India  whom  he  had  per¬ 
suaded  to  read  the  New  Testament.  Deeply  impressed,  the  man  declared  that 


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if  he  could  find  Christians  who  matched  that  Book  he  would  join  them.  He 
sought  amongst  the  white  people  for  the  life  of  the  Book;  but  reported  to  Bishop 
Taylor  that  he  had  failed  to  find  it  to  his  satisfaction.  The  latter  then  sent 
him  among  the  native  converts,  receiving  his  pledge  that  he  would  make  as 
diligent  search  there  as  he  had  made  among  the  Europeans.  In  a  short  time  he 
returned  with  enthusiasm  to  say  that  he  had  discovered  men  and  women  whose 
lives  corresponded  with  the  Book.  He  himself  became  a  Christian  and  suffered 
the  loss  of  wealth  and  friends  for  the  sake  of  the  Name,  and  when  he  died  of 
violence  in  Bombay  his  last  words  were,  “It  is  sweet  to  die  for  Jesus.” 

A  tremendous  truth  it  is,  at  once  a  testimony  to  Divine  grace  and  a  needed 
rebuke  and  spur  to  our  home  churches,  that  the  New  Testament  experiences 
are  today  being  reproduced  most  closely,  not  in  our  conventionalized  Christen¬ 
dom,  but  in  the  communities  of  disciples  who  are  freshly  out  of  raw  heathenism. 
If  the  home  Church  through  Foreign  Missions  has  a  blessing  to  bestow,  it  has 
one  also  to  receive.  If  it  has  a  lesson  to  teach,  it  has  also  a  vital  one  to  learn. 

Prevents  the  Provincializing  of  Christianity  by  the  Home  Church. 

The  missionary  enterprise  keeps  before  the  Church  the  true  conception  of 
Christianity.  The  distinctive  feature  of  our  religion  is  its  universalism.  Other 
religions  are  local,  national,  ethnic,  for  particular  races  and  peoples.  But  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ  is  for  all  races  and  peoples.  To  make  it  anything  less, 
to  change  its  compass  or  its  scope,  is  to  change  its  character.  It  is  to  put  a  pro¬ 
vincial  narrowness  in  it,  and  a  provincial  accent  on  it.  Now,  a  provincial  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  not  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  a  provincial  Saviour  is  not  the 
One  who  said,  “And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  Me.” 

Holds  the  Church  True  to  its  Chief  Purpose. 

The  Church’s  supreme  business,  what  is  it? — to  give  Christ  to  all  the  world. 
If  we  believe  that  in  Christ  alone  is  found  the  truth  that  satisfies  the  intellect, 
the  power  that  regenerates  the  life,  and  the  hope  that  illumines  the  future;  if 
we  believe  that  to  men’s  need  of  Christ  there  is  no  exception,  and  to  His  power 
to  save  them  there  is  no  limit;  if  we  believe  that  He  is  the  gift  of  the  Father  to 
all,  that  He  died  to  make  atonement  for  the  sins  of  all,  that  He  has  been  lifted 
up  to  draw  all  men  unto  Him;  then  we  must  believe  that  the  Church’s  first  duty 
is  to  give  the  knowledge  of  this  Saviour  to  all  mankind. 


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No  one  can  read  the  New  Testament  without  seeing  that  the  evangeliza¬ 
tion  of  the  world  was  the  supreme  thought  of  Christ.  For  this  primary  purpose 
His  Church  was  organized,  equipped,  empowered,  and  commissioned  by  her 
Lord’s  latest  and  greatest  command. 

A  church  whose  congregational  life  is  not  adjusted  to  this  missionary  end 
is  like  a  ship  whose  prow  is  placed  at  the  side  or  rear  of  the  vessel.  Its  sym¬ 
metry  is  spoiled,  its  progress  crippled,  its  harmony  of  action  lost.  A  Scriptural 
missionary  zeal  blesses  the  Church  by  putting  the  prow  in  front. 

Antidotes  Home-Church  Selfishness  and  its  Attendant  Evils. 

When  John  G.  Paton  settled  in  his  first  missionary  field,  he  and  his  family 
were  so  subject  to  mosquitoes  and  malaria,  that  his  wife  and  child  died  and  his 
own  life  seemed  doomed.  But  upon  moving  his  hut  to  a  higher  part  of  the  island, 
he  found  he  had  gotten  above  the  mosquito  level,  and  was  troubled  no  more. 

So  also  many  a  church  is  worried  and  weakened  by  bickerings  and  dissensions 
that  seem  incurable.  The  way  to  get  rid  of  them  is  to  get  above  them,  to  leave 
the  malarial  region  of  selfishness  and  climb  up  to  the  missionary  hill-top,  where 
the  horizon  of  duty  is  so  vast,  and  the  needs  of  a  lost  world  so  appalling,  that 
the  old  complaints  and  differences  seem  in  contrast,  not  only  wicked,  but  petty 
and  childish. 

Many  a  church  is  like  the  Great  Eastern  trying  to  navigate  in  a  mill  pond. 
No  great  port  to  reach,  no  wide  sea  to  sail  in,  no  vast  horizon  for  the  eye,  no 
great  responsibility  for  the  mind,  nothing  but  a  dead  routine  of  little  things  to 
occupy  the  passengers  and  crew — no  wonder  they  grow  narrow  and  selfish, 
dissatisfied  and  quarrelsome,  and  the  ship  is  often  left  jammed  on  the  bank 
or  stuck  in  the  mud. 

Every  church,  however  small,  is  a  ship  built  by  Christ  for  the  wide  ocean. 
Its  home  is  to  be  the  high  seas.  Its  horizon  is  to  be  world- wide.  Its  port  is 
to  be  the  discipling  of  all  nations. 

An  All-Around  Spiritual  Tonic. 

The  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  tells  us  of  eighteen  churches 
which  a  few  years  ago  adopted  the  plan  of  a  separate  subscription  to  Foreign 
Missions.  The  result  was  an  increase  of  liberality  along  all  lines.  The  Foreign 


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Mission  offerings  increased  91%  above  what  they  had  been.  At  the  same  time 
the  offerings  for  home  benevolences  increased  67%,  and  for  congregational  ex¬ 
penses  34%.  The  world  appeal  is  a  powerful  lever  to  lift  us  to  the  performance 
of  every  Christian  obligation. 


After  giving  figures  for  his  own  church  similar  to  the  above,  Rev.  R.  O. 
Flinn,  D.D.,  of  Atlanta,  Ga.,  adds:  “It  is  our  candid  opinion,  born  of  personal 
experience  covering  more  than  fourteen  years  and  in  two  pastorates,  that  a 
large-hearted,  courageous  liberality  in  behalf  of  Foreign  Missions  may  be  expected 
to  exercise  a  tonic  effect  upon  the  whole  church  life,  and  to  prove  most  stimulating 
in  enlarging  the  activity  of  every  line  of  Christian  beneficence.”  Hundreds 
of  such  testimonies  could  be  given. 

There  is  nothing  that  so  develops  and  liberalizes  an  individual  or  a  church 
as  identification  with  a  great  cause. 

“While  speaking  in  a  church  in  Michigan,”  says  a  missionary  worker,  “I 
noticed  among  the  audience  a  woman  whose  whole  appearance  spoke  of  the 
deepest  poverty;  but  there  was  a  light  in  her  faded  face  which  fascinated  me. 
I  took  occasion  to  speak  to  her.  ‘Two  years  ago,’  she  told  me,  ‘I  learned  for  the 
first  time  of  this  women’s  work  for  women,  and  each  month  since  I  have  been 
able  to  put  something  into  the  treasury.’  Her  bent  form  straightened  and  her 
eyes  shone  as  she  continued:  ‘When  I  have  given  my  gift,  I  am  conscious  that 
I  am  no  longer  simply  a  part  of  this  little  town,  or  even  of  this  great  common¬ 
wealth;  I  am  a  part  of  the  forces  which  God  is  using  for  the  uplifting  of  nations.’ 

There  we  find  a  divine  antidote  to  that  spiritual  littleness  and  short¬ 
sightedness,  which,  as  St.  Peter  says,  “is  blind,  seeing  only  what  is  near.” 


Christlikeness. 

The  niggardly  church  member  who  refused  to  make  a  contribution  to  this 
cause  with  the  indignant  statement  that  he  v/ould  like  to  know  what  the  heathen 
had  ever  done  for  him,  unwittingly  put  his  linger  on  one  of  the  distinctive  glories 
of  Foreign  Missions. 

The  greater  part  of  our  Christian  service  at  home  is  among  our  friends  and 
neighbors,  from  whom,  even  though  they  be  unconverted,  we  usually  receive 
thanks  and  grateful  appreciation.  If  we  love  those  that  love  us,  and  do  good 
to  those  that  do  good  to  us,  what  do  we  more  than  others  ?  Do  not  even 
the  publicans  the  same  ? 


8 


But  the  Foreign  Mission  work  is  a  supreme  unselfishness.  It  is  carried  on 
for  men  and  women  whom  the  horr'e  ^ir.irch  has  not  seen,  who  can  render  her 
no  return  of  any  sort,  who  at  first  i  a  reward  her  efforts  to  help  them  with 
persecution,  abuse,  and  murder.  1  welve  vears  ago,  in  one  country  alone,  nearly 
200  missionaries  suffered  martyr  deaths. 

If  the  Son  of  God  came  “not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister,  and  to 
give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many,”  then  surely  it  is  in  her  Foreign  Mission  service 
that  the  Church  shows  her  closest  likeness  to  her  Lord. 

Inspires  the  Home  Church  to  Christian  Heroism. 

Professor  William  James,  in  one  of  his  books,  speaks  of  “the  remarkable 
way  in  which  contemporary  religion  neglects  the  heroic  standards  of  life.”  The 
prevalent  dread  of  poverty  and  hardship  among  our  better  classes,  with  its 
accompanying  worship  of  wealth  and  luxury,  he  pronounces,  “the  worst  disease 
from  which  our  civilization  suffers.”  “What  we  now  need  to  discover  in  the 
social  realm  is  the  moral  equivalent  of  war”;  something,  he  explains,  that  will 
inspire  to  hardship  and  heroism  as  war  does,  but  without  the  spiritual  demorali¬ 
zation  that  accompanies  war. 

If  present-day  religion  has  become  soft  and  self-indulgent,  where  better 
can  it  relearn  the  heroic  standards  of  Apostolic  Christianity  than  in  the  records 
and  work  of  Foreign  Missions?  The  enterprise  itself  is  one  of  pure  heroism. 
Obstacles  of  climate  and  government,  separation  from  loved  ones,  death  itself 
in  its  most  frightful  forms — all  have  been  met,  but  they  can  not  stop  the  work. 
The  pages  of  missionary  history  are  ablaze  with  the  most  glorious  examples  of 
Christian  heroism  and  self-devotion. 

Think  of  young  Horace  Pitkin  in  China,  while  his  wife  and  little  son  were 
in  this  country,  being  led  out  to  execution  by  the  Boxers  and  saying  to  a  friend, 
“If  you  escape,  send  word  to  my  little  boy  that  when  he  grows  to  be  twenty- 
five,  I  want  him  to  come  out  and  take  my  place  here  as  a  missionary  of  the 
Lord  Jesus.” 

Think  of  David  Livingstone,  surrounded  by  countless  difficulties  in  the 
heart  of  Africa,  worn  out  by  forty-five  attacks  of  swamp  fever,  yet  writing, 
“Nothing  earthly  will  make  me  give  up  my  work  in  despair.  I  encourage  my¬ 
self  in  the  Lord  my  God  and  go  forward.”  On  he  went,  but  he  could  not  go 


much  further.  His  strength  was  utterly  spent.  His  black  followers  built  him  a 
little  hut  and  placed  him  beneath  its  shade.  The  next  day  he  lay  quiet.  The 
following  morning  when  they  looked  in  at  dawn,  his  candle  was  still  burning, 
and  Livingstone  was  kneeling  by  his  bed,  his  face  buried  in  his  hands.  He  was 
dead;  and  he  had  died  upon  his  knees  in  prayer  to  God  for  the  poor  people  of 
Africa. 

In  his  journal  there  is  a  touching  entry,  made  on  his  last  birthday  but 
one.  It  reveals  the  motive  power  of  his  whole  career:  “My  Jesus,  my  King, 
my  Life,  my  All,  I  again  dedicate  my  whole  self  to  Thee.” 

If  our  home  religion  is  losing  the  old  heroic  fire,  as  many  think  it  is,  the  place 
to  rekindle  it  is  at  our  missionary  altars. 

Develops  in  the  Home  Church  the  Spirit  of  Brotherhood. 

It  lifts  the  Church  to  the  true  conception  of  human  brotherhood  and  respon¬ 
sibility.  It  opens  our  eyes  to  the  truth  that  all  God’s  peoples  are  made  of  one 
blood,  that  all  nations,  even  the  most  distant  and  heathen,  are  members  of  the 
great  human  family,  each  one  having  the  same  inherent  right  to  know  God  as 
revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  call  Him  Father.  It  teaches  that  no  brother¬ 
hood  less  wide  than  the  brotherhood  of  man  should  satisfy  the  heart  of  the  dis¬ 
ciple,  as  nothing  less  satisfied  the  heart  of  the  Master. 

Our  own  ends,  our  own  community,  our  own  nation,  are  too  often  the  boun¬ 
daries  of  our  interests.  We  will  think  of  the  other  side  of  the  world  if  we  can  make 
money  out  of  it,  but  not  of  ourselves  as  bound  to  it  by  any  ties  of  high  motive 
or  duty.  Let  us  be  sure  that  such  denial  of  brotherhood  rests  under  the  anathema 
of  Him  Who  loved  and  Who  died  for  us  all. 

Modern  invention  has  made  the  world  one  neighborhood;  it  is  the  Church’s 
opportunity  to  make  it  one  brotherhood. 

The  Bitter  Cry  of  the  Christless  World. 

To  a  brotherly  heart  what  stronger  philanthropic,  educational,  or  spiritual 
appeal  can  there  be  than  that  of  a  non-Christian  world  in  which  the  average 
is  less  than  one  physician  to  two  million  people,  in  which  ninety-five  per  cent 
of  the  population  have  their  minds  dwarfed  and  darkened  by  total  illiteracy, 
and  in  which  scores  of  millions  have  never  heard  or  had  opportunity  to  hear  of 
the  world’s  Redeemer  ? 


10 


Says  a  traveller,  not  himself  a  Christian,  “One  day  I- stood  near  one  of  the 
great  temples.  With  me  was  a  friend.  While  we  stood  there,  a  native  woman 
came,  carrying  a  little  child.  She  took  no  notice  of  us,  but  at  the  foot  of  the  tem¬ 
ple  steps  she  threw  herself  prone  on  the  ground,  holding  the  baby  up  in  her  arms. 
It  was  a  poor  little  feeble,  sickly  child.  And  she  prayed,  ‘Oh,  grant  that  my 
child  may  grow  healthy  and  fair  like  other  children.  Grant  that  it  may  grow 
strong.  Oh,  hear  the  cry  of  a  mother,  and  a  mother’s  breaking  heart.’ 

“As  she  was  going  away,  we  said,  ‘Friend,  to  whom  have  you  prayed?’ 
She  said,  ‘I  do  not  know,  but  surely  somewhere  there  must  be  someone  to  hear 
a  mother’s  cry  and  keep  a  mother’s  heart  from  breaking’.’’ 

In  all  this  universe  is  there  anything  as  hopeless  as  a  heathen’s  grief,  or  as 
dark  as  a  heathen’s  grave?  And,  oh,  what  a  change  it  makes  when  they  learn 
of  Him  Who  came  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  and  Who  said,  “I  am  the  Resur¬ 
rection  and  the  Life.’’  Said  a  little  Manchurian  girl,  in  speaking  of  the  flower- 
planted  grave  of  her  baby  brother,  “The  grave  has  become  a  new  place  to  us 
since  Jesus  came  to  our  village.’’ 

From  the  Congo  region  Bishop  Lambuth  writes: 

“The  prevailing  religion  is  one  of  fear.  They  are  haunted  by  spirits  real  or  imaginary. 
Life  is  a  burden  and  the  women  especially  become  so  weary  of  it  that  they  frequently  com¬ 
mit  suicide.  One  was  found  a  few  mornings  ago  with  her  neck  over  a  loop  of  palm  fibre.  She 
was  dead  and  yet  standing  on  her  feet.  Polygamy  accounts  for  much  of  the  jealousy  and  bitter¬ 
ness,  and  domestic  slavery  tells  the  rest  of  the  story.  I  met  a  man  this  morning  with  a  spear  in 
one  hand  and  a  little  musical  instrument  in  the  other  driving  two  women  to  market  with  heavy 
loads  on  their  heads.  They  had  walked  fifty  miles.  The  story  of  the  evangelist  who  is  with 
me,  and  that  of  his  wife,  would  thrill  you.  Both  were  carried  off  as  slaves  during  childhood 
as  the  result  of  raids  upon  their  native  villages  by  other  tribes.” 

Heathen  Civilization. 

Brotheihood!  the  responsibility  of  brotherhood!  Think  of  our  brothers 
over  yonder,  with  civilizations  under  which  “women  groan,  and  children  perish, 
and  men  live  like  beasts.’’  Think  of  the  religions  of  Africa  which  teach  men  to 
slay  and  devour  one  another;  the  religions  of  India  with  their  licentious  rites 
and  worship  of  brutes. 

Think  of  those  “nightly  processions  through  the  streets  of  Chinese  cities, 
long  files  of  young  blind  girls,  decked  with  garlands  for  the  sacrifice  of  lust;  friend¬ 
less,  helpless,  homeless;  marching  each  with  her  hands  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 


11 


one  before  her;  groping  their  way  through  an  endless  midnight  to  sin  and 
shame  and  suffering  and  death." 

All  that  is  heathen  civilization.  Confucius  and  Buddha,  what  have  they 
done  for  these  wretched  victims  of  sin  and  ignorance?  Nothing.  What  do  they 
propose  to  do?  Nothing.  The  only  thing  that  can  help  them  is  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ.  And  because  He  has  given  it  to  us,  we  owe  it  to  them.  Cried 
Paul,  "1  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks  and  to  the  Barbarians,  both  to  the  wise 
and  to  the  unwise."  Not  to  recognize  this  debt  is  to  say,  as  the  first  murderer 
said:  "Am  1  my  brother’s  keeper?"  Blessed  be  the  Foreign  Mission  work, 
because  it  teaches  us  the  breadth  and  the  claim  of  human  brotherhood. 

Promotes  the  Unity  of  all  Believers  in  Christ. 

Face  to  face  with  the  black  mass  of  paganism,  the  disciples  of  Jesus  feel, 
as  nowhere  else,  that  they  are  one.  "In  a  country  where  people  pray  to  cows,” 
says  Lord  Macaulay,  "the  differences  that  divide  Christians  seem  of  small  ac¬ 
count."  There  they  concentrate  upon  the  fundamentals.  There  they  all  rally 
round  the  Person  and  Cross  of  Christ,  and  preach  the  one  Incarnate  and  Atoning 
Saviour. 

This  growing  unity,  we  might  almost  say  this  common  front,  on  the  Foreign 
field,  is  having  a  tremendous  influence  on  all  the  churches.  We  are  seeing,  as 
never  before,  that  the  points  on  which  we  differ  are  small  and  few  compared  with 
those  in  which  we  agree.  We  are  learning  that  the  true  unity  among  Christians 
lies  in  their  common  purpose,  their  common  love,  their  common  trust,  their 
common  hope;  in  one  word,  their  loyalty  to  the  same  blessed  Lord  and  Saviour, 
in  Whom  we  all  live,  for  Whom  we  all  labor,  to  Whose  radiant  Image  we  are  all 
to  be  conformed. 

And  when  that  day  arrives  which  the  Church’s  Foreign  Mission  work  is 
speeding  on,  that  golden  day  whose  very  mention  sets  Christian  hearts  to 
beating,  when  all  who  bear  the  name  of  Christ  shall  have  eyes  and  ears  for  Him 
alone,  then  shall  His  dying  prayer  be  fulfilled: 

"That  they  all  may  be  one;  as  Thou  Father  art  in  Me  and  I  in  Thee,  that 
they  also  may  be  one  in  us:  THAT  THE  WORLD  MAY  BELIEVE  THAT 
THOU  HAST  SENT  ME." 


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I 


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